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Psychology Article Summary- Guidelines
You are responsible for finding, summarizing, and giving feedback on two articles that are
related to what we are studying this term in our Psychology class. The following are you
expectations for the assignment:
 The articles that you find must be less than 15 years old.
 The article must discuss the issues surrounding a topic of related to Human Growth and
Development and cannot simply be an account of a news story.
 The summaries and feedback must both be in paragraph form
 Copies of both articles must be submitted with the assignment
 A separate reference page must be submitted with the assignment outlining the sources
of the articles

Five (5) extra points per article will be granted if an additional article is cited that gives
an opposing view of that discussed in the article that you summarize. You would only
need to briefly stated what the opposing view is and list the source of the opposing
article on your reference sheet.
 The article summaries must be typed, printed, and turned in on the date given by your
instructor.
Summary
 Name of article
 Source
 Date
 Author and who the author is (news reporter, researcher, etc.)
 What the article talked about
 What do you think was the purpose of the article?
o Inform?
o Present research?
o Making an argument?
o Something else?
 Any conclusions made in the article
Feedback
 Is this topic important to the field of Psychology? Why?
 Do you think that the article gave enough information about the topic?
 What additional information do you think would have been helpful for the article to be
more informative?
 Do you agree with the results of the research or the conclusions suggested by the
article? Why or why not?
 Do you think that the article was a trustworthy source of information? Why or why not?
 What are some questions (at least two) that personally come to mind after reading the
article?

Article #1: “A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Oxcarbazepine in the
Treatment of Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents”
This article is a segment of The American Journal of Psychiatry, published July 1, 2006.
There are many authors on this piece, such as; Karen Dineen Wagner, M.D.,Ph.D., who is a
Professor in Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Division of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Next you
have Robert A. Kowatch, M.D. who is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Center for Innovation in
Pediatric Practice at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Timothy E.
Wilens, M.D. is Chief, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Co-Director, Center for
Addiction Medicine, and Director, Substance Abuse Services in Pediatric Psychopharmacology
at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. Robert E. Lehman, M.D. expertise is in the area of
diagnosis and psychopharmacology. Douglas Berv, M.D. is a psychiatrist in Hamden,
Connecticut and is affiliated with Yale-New Haven Hospital. He received his medical degree
from Yale University School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 years. David
Linden, M.D. is a Professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
This research was to examine the efficacy and safety of oxcarbazepine in the treatment of
bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. A total of 116 outpatients 7 to 18 years of age with
bipolar I disorder, manic or mixed, were recruited at 20 centers in the United States and
randomly assigned to receive 7 weeks of double-blinded, flexibly dosed treatment with
oxcarbazepine (maximum dose 900–2400 mg/day) or placebo. Oxcarbazepine did not
significantly improve YMRS scores at endpoint compared with placebo. Dizziness, nausea,
somnolence, diplopia, fatigue, and rash were each reported in at least 5% of the patients in the
oxcarbazepine group with an incidence at least twice that of the placebo group. The majority of
adverse events were mild to moderate and occurred during the titration period. Eleven patients
(19%) in the oxcarbazepine group discontinued the study because of adverse events, compared
with two (4%) in the placebo group. In conclusion, Oxcarbazepine was found to not be more
helpful compared to placebo drugs in the treatment of bipolar disorder in youths. While the
overall adverse event profile was similar to that reported for patients with epilepsy, the incidence
of negative psychiatric for both the oxcarbazepine and placebo groups was higher than that
reported for the epilepsy population. I believe the purpose of this study was to inform the reader
of recent research and to publicly introduce the research.
This topic is important to psychology because it pertains to the treatment of a
psychological disorder. The article gave more than enough information on the topic at hand, but I
feel that the study would have benefited from having more than 116 participants. I agree with the
results, because after reading over the study it made sense to how they got it. I believe the article
is a trustworthy source because the American Journal of Psychiatry is a respected, peer-reviewed
journal that has been published for years, and the authors are professionals in the field.
My two questions would be:
1. Why did the researchers not compare two different medications that help with bipolar
disorders?
2. Could the use of different dosages of the same medication be studied in the two
groups?
References
Wagner, K. D., Kowatch, R. A., Wilens, T. E., Lehman, R.E., Bery, D., and Linden, D. (2006).
A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Oxcarbazepine in the
Treatment of Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 163(7), 1179-1186. doi:10.1176/ajp.2006.163.7.1179